


The Solution for Ennui

by Sadbhyl



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Lucillius Gralae finds that immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Solution for Ennui

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eponymous_rose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponymous_rose/gifts).



> Originally published November 21, 2007
> 
> For eponymous_rose who requested episodes in the (extended) life of Sebastian Grayle from the Eighth Doctor story “Seasons of Fear”

Immortality was monotonous.

Within twenty years of his transfiguration by his masters, Gralae had everything he ever wanted. His rightful inheritance and more besides when the last of his brothers died. A house in Lundinium and one outside of Rome. A wife and two mistresses and the virility to satisfy them all. Recognition as a war hero, fearless and unstoppable.

It should have been enough.

It wasn’t.

As the years went on, the houses crumbled and the women grew old. There were no children to pass his legacy to. There was no legacy. If he didn’t die, he couldn’t be remembered. To the contrary, he had to become unmemorable to avoid the uncomfortable questions of why he still appeared to be a man in his prime when all of his peers had gone to the grave. He faked his own death and went away to Germany for a few years before returning, posing as a distant nephew of himself and claiming his birthright once again. And again. And again.

It was boring.

Without death there was no challenge. Because of his vow to his masters, he couldn’t exert himself, set himself above these pitiful humans he had now so completely surpassed. There was nothing for him in this world, and no promise of the next. He was immortal. This world was the only one he would ever know, until the Rapture came and his masters created Paradise on Earth.

He took holy orders, trying better to understand the will of his masters until they should communicate with him again. With their small minds and limited understanding, his brethren couldn’t comprehend how grand the Divine Plan was and how significant his part in it. They shunned him, punished him for speaking heresy, and were punished in return by old age and death, leaving him alone in the silent cloisters until he was driven back to the outside world by madness and isolation. He took up his life in the outskirts of Lundenburgh and tried again to find patience and meaning in the empty, endless days.

“Master! Come and see!” Godfric, his doorman, called from the front of the house, half in wonder, half in horror. “There’s a sorcerer in the square, performing his magic for all to see! You must do something!”

Grayle wasn’t interested. “It is nothing to me. Let the guardsmen deal with the charlatan.”

“He is no charlatan, master. I saw him with my own eyes. He opened a locked chest with his magic wand and turns infants to sugar and eats them. He’s the devil himself, master. You’re the reeve here, sir, you have to save us!”

Grayle sighed at his man’s superstitious nature. But if Godfric believed it, others in town would as well and soon they would be pounding on his door to deal with it anyway. Best to defeat it now. “Fine, Godfric, fetch my cloak.”

As reeve, his house was close to the town square. That didn’t keep the mud from clumping on his shoes or the cold March rain from working beneath his cloak and under his hood, making him cold and aggravated as he made his way between the buildings. Even here he could make out the sounds of awe and wonder from the people gathered around the fountain. No one noticed him as he came out of the alley onto the plaza. There were dozens of them clustered around, hiding this so-called sorcerer from view.

From his vantage, he saw two things. A squad of the town’s guardsmen marched into the square opposite Grayle, heading purposefully toward the fountain. At the same time a young Pictish man, in furs and kilt, shoved through the crowd, his urgent words covered by the noise of the crowd. The soldiers drew their swords in a chorus of whistling steel, and the audience stampeded, screaming in panic, the sorcerer and his Pictish assistant lost in the mass.

“Doctor!”

Grayle’s blood went cold at the piercing woman’s cry, loud enough to be heard over the panic. He searched the crowd for a half remembered face, his blood pounding at the memory of the man who had stolen so much from him so many centuries ago. Struggling through the mob, he looked for any sign of hair with womanly waves above the crowd or a hawk nose that led all before it, but only glimpsed the Pictish youth guiding a half-dressed, half-starved girl between the buildings and out of the fray.

Unable to follow, he grabbed a terrified young woman who was trying to escape. “Who was it? Did you see him? Tell me what you saw, girl!”

She seemed suddenly more afraid of him than of the armed guards. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t see. I couldn’t get close enough and then—” She glanced back over her shoulder at the thinning riot.

“Was it the Doctor?”

“That’s what they said, sir. Please, sir, let me go. My brother will be so afraid for me.”

Satisfied with the information, he shoved her away. “Go on, then.” Still searching the crowd, he added, “And don’t attend to the performances of sorcerers again, girl. That way lies damnation.”

The girl squeaked in fear and ran off.

The Doctor. Here. For the first time in three centuries, he remembered the citizen who had tricked him, betrayed his masters and robbed Grayle of the true rewards of immortality. All that power, all that glory, gone because of one man. He had forgotten the strange man in his drive to live, to revel in all he thought he’d received. It had taken him so long to realize just how empty that victory was, he’d forgotten all but the name of the man who had taken it from him.

This empty half life was all the Doctor’s fault. The memory, the hatred rose inside him like a phoenix, giving him life, giving him purpose. The Doctor continued to exist just as Grayle did, which meant they would meet again. Grayle vowed to wait and plan and be ready for the next time. He would be avenged and punish his nemesis for all he had suffered all these years.

He had a purpose again. And it made him feel so very alive.


End file.
